


A Candle in the Darkness

by Sierendipity



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Kinda, Kissing, M/M, Magic, Naruto is a Prince, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 18:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17371538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sierendipity/pseuds/Sierendipity
Summary: "He’s thin, this other boy, with his ink-dark hair and his sharp-dark eyes, and he doesn’t put up a fight as he’s pushed to his knees in front of the throne, close enough for Naruto to realize that the dried smears on his shirt and his skin aren’t dirt, but blood."---The arrival of an unusual prisoner irrevocably changes Prince Naruto's once quiet world, and he finds himself burdened not only by the weight of new responsibility, but by things unsaid between them.





	A Candle in the Darkness

The guards bring the boy into the throne room on the ninth week without rain.

Naruto is sitting at King Ryuusei’s feet, where he belongs, owing the loose clothes and the full stomach to the weight of the king’s hand on his shoulder. It’s been a year since the king plucked him from the streets—something about reserve _anja_ levels far beyond normal—and given him a home. Turned him from an orphan with dirt under his nails to a prince with hair softer than the clouds and bright as the sun.

Naruto hadn’t cared why—someone was _feeding him._ Someone cared enough to know that he’d needed _help._

He watches the guards drag the boy into the room, tasting the heat in the air in the back of his throat, and swallows through the dust. He’s thin, this other boy, with his ink-dark hair and his sharp-dark eyes, and he doesn’t put up a fight as he’s pushed to his knees in front of the throne, close enough for Naruto to realize that the dried smears on his shirt and his skin aren’t dirt, but blood.

Naruto swallows again and manages to not look at the king. _Quiet. Stay quiet and watch. He doesn’t want me to do anything but watch._ The hand on his shoulder squeezes once and disappears. Naruto misses it with a kind of twist in his chest, but doesn’t say anything.

_He needs help too. I hope Ryuusei sees._

He looks at the boy pleadingly, but the dark stare has dropped to the stones of the throne room, ignoring him. Naruto taps his fingers against his legs, suddenly noticing how small the other boy looks from even the slight difference of the platform. The guards lean on either side of him, keeping him low to the floor. This isn’t fair; what makes this boy so different from him? Why is he treated so meanly? _What happened to him?_

“Where is Takashi?” the king’s voice booms over his head, and Naruto flinches, lost in thought. The other boy doesn’t move; stare fixed exactly where he dropped it, the rasp of his breathing shaking his shoulders. He can’t be much older than Naruto, and he’s washed with a need to help him.

“I’ll fetch him, Majesty!” a third guard offers, and disappears down the hallway. Takashi and his eyes, his knowledge, he’ll be the one to verify the truth, like always. That’s why he’s the king’s right hand, his Usogin _._

Naruto doesn’t much like him. He’s… odd.

Ryuusei makes a sound of agreement and then Naruto feels him stand, a great shift of robes and jewelry that rustles and clinks when he moves. Naruto stays in his place at the throne, waiting for a signal to move. He shifts, though, unable to sit completely still, something humming in his veins.

The king walks to the edge of the dais, hands tucked behind his back. The boy’s stare doesn’t lift, even with the king in front of him. Naruto is awed at this but manages to keep his mouth shut. His whole body fizzes.

“Child,” the king orders, and his voice shakes the walls. Naruto wraps his arms around his knees and pulls them to his chest, knowing what’s coming next. _Look up. Look up! Pleasepleaseplease—_

Nothing.

The whole room seems to hold its breath. Ryuusei snaps his fingers, and one of the guards grabs the boy by a handful of his blood-spiked hair and yanks him backwards, forced to look at the king. His face stays totally blank, not even a hint of pain. Naruto buries his face in the cross of his arms and _watches,_ heart pounding.

“What happened here?” the king asks no one in particular, drawn to his full height; Naruto can feel the prick of Ryuusei’s _anja_ swirling through the room like the crackle of a fire, the flash of an ember. It makes the already hot air hotter, and Naruto coughs into his sleeve.

The boy’s eyes shoot to him for a second, shadow and smoke, and then back to the king.

"We found him outside of Uchiha Manor, Majesty!” the guard on the left says, something in his voice unsteady. Ryuusei’s back stiffens, and the taste of his _anja_ fades.

“Uchiha?” he mutters, the angle of his head never moving from the boy.

Naruto wracks his brain for his lessons on the history of Konoha. Uchiha is… they’re a powerful family, well-respected, involved in the politics and the sway of the kingdom. Naruto stares at the boy’s empty eyes, the blood, the tight pinch of his lips, and knows the news isn’t good.

“Yes, Majesty,” the other guard says, near-whispers. “The Uchiha, the whole family… they’re dead. Slaughtered.” The guard tugs on the boy’s arm. “Found him outside, collapsed in the dirt. Like this.”

 _No._ Naruto can’t help his mouth dropping open in shock, nor the gasp that slips out. Ryuusei’s head slowly angles to stare at him, and he claps his hands together over his mouth. _Dead. All of them…? No…_

Ryuusei turns back to stare at the guards, and crouches down so he’s at the boy’s level. “The whole family,” he muses, reaching out to catch the boy’s chin in one of his hands. “Except you, Sasuke Uchiha.” There’s nothing kind in the gesture, and the prick of his _anja_ rises, spins, fades.

The boy—Sasuke—his face goes tight, taut, like the string of the guards’ bows in the training grounds, and he glares at the king with something cold in his eyes. _How does Ryuusei know who he is?_ Naruto’s never seen him before; he’s pretty sure he’d remember a face like Sasuke’s.

The third guard bursts into the room. “Takashi is on his way, Majesty,” he announces, and the king pushes Sasuke’s face back to drooped and rises.

“Good,” he says. Then he turns to the guards holding Sasuke. “Put him in the dungeons until I can figure out what to do with him. Send Takashi down once he is locked away.”

Naruto blinks. _The dungeons? But… why? He’s like me. Alone. He needs help!_ But the tone of Ryuusei’s voice leaves no room for argument, not that Naruto was told to speak anyway. Naruto sinks his fingers into his shoulders as the guards nod and drag Sasuke away.

Their eyes lock one more time, and Naruto sees something there he hasn’t seen directed his way since he was on the streets, running and hiding for his own safety, dodging harsh words and harsher kicks.

 _Anger_.

Ryuusei sits in the throne again, his hand briefly on Naruto’s shoulder, but the feeling isn’t the same; it doesn’t make him feel warm. _The dungeons. It’s cold and dark in the dungeons. Why…?_ He curls further into himself.

He knows how to get to the dungeons.

 

* * *

 

 

Sasuke Uchiha’s cell is the last one on the left, far away from the door and the torchlight.

Naruto wishes he had his _anja_ , wishes it had manifested already, so he could warp and wield and _see,_ but he doesn’t, and he can’t. So, he feels his way along the bars until the darkness is the purest kind, and only a faint peep of moonlight washes over the floor.

It’s taken him a few days to muster the courage to sneak down here, but something about the anger in Sasuke’s eyes propelled him forward. The king had helped him and not Sasuke, even though they’re the _same_. He doesn’t understand.

Also, the guards down here are kinda stupid, he’s learned. They don’t think to look _up,_ where he’d hopped skillfully over stonework, remembering running through dark alleyways. It’s not hard to sneak past the one, or sometimes two, that guard the entrance to the cells.

He reaches the last cell, feels the cool metal under his hands, and sits against the far wall, listening for clanging footsteps. He can’t see anything, can’t see Sasuke, but he’s there, he has to be.

“Sasuke?” he asks into the darkness, and his voice sounds small and harsh in a whisper. He hasn’t used it in a while; the king doesn’t like it when he speaks out of turn.

Silence. But something shifts.

“Sasuke,” again, sharper. He wants to know why he’s mad. He wants to know what happened. But more than anything, he wants to understand what makes them different when they’re clearly not.

Something moves again, closer.

“I’m sorry about what happened.” And he is, really. He knows what it’s like to be alone.

Still quiet.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Naruto reaches out and finds the edge of the bars again in the dark, closing his hands around the metal. “I won’t know if you don’t say anything.”

A shift. Then nothing.

“Sasuke—”

One smoke-shadow eye appears in the shaft of moonlight, narrowed between the bars. There’s no blood on his face anymore, and his expression is cold. He still doesn’t say anything, but Naruto can _see him,_ at least.

“So, you are listening,” Naruto says, smiling, even though he doesn’t know why. “I’m sorry this happened, I don’t know why, I wish I did.”

Sasuke blinks, once, eerily still.

Naruto leans against the wall and closes his eyes. “I don’t think you should be down here. I want to talk to the king, but…” He shifts, fidgets. He hasn’t been able to really talk with the king since his initial _anja_ didn’t manifest at nine like it was supposed to. “I can’t. I’m sorry, really.”

The clank of a footstep jerks him to attention. Sasuke’s face disappears. Naruto stands, and nods. “I just wanted to say that. Okay. I’ll come back.”

And he leaves, before he gets caught. He doesn’t want to get Sasuke in trouble.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you cold?”

It’s been a week, and Naruto is back, but the silence is the same. He sits on the floor anyway.

The dungeons aren’t separated entirely from the castle, and there _is_ a faint bit of light, but it’s much warmer up in the soaring walls of the upper floors, with their tapestries and torches and constant, reaching sunlight.

The castle is cold for other reasons, but Naruto isn’t here to talk about those.

“It would be nice if they would give you a blanket or something, don’t you think? Then you wouldn’t be so cold.” He could probably ask Ryuusei about that, but then again… maybe not. Sasuke is still a prisoner, even if Naruto doesn’t understand it. He breathes out, ruffling his hair, and crosses his arms. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

Sasuke’s one visible eye blinks at him from behind the bars. His expression is like ice, like the swirling spears the rear guard of the army can create. Naruto snuggles deeper into his robes and blinks back.

“If you’re cold, you can tell me.” He tips his head. “I’ll try to help. I want to help you.”

Sasuke’s eyebrow lowers, and then raises. He looks unsure. Naruto smiles at him, nodding into the collar of his robe.

“I do, really.”

Sasuke makes a small, soft noise and backs up, fading into the darkness around the moonlight. Naruto hums and closes his eyes. He’ll take it, for now.

Better than complete silence.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Sasuke?”

Sasuke’s stare shifts to him, but he’s quiet. Naruto leans forward, closing a little of the distance between them. He’s been coming down here for near to three months, every week like clockwork, and all he ever gets from Sasuke are sighs or blinks or silence.

Sasuke hasn’t spoken, not once, but Naruto has to ask.

“Do you… do you miss your family?”

Silence. Sasuke doesn’t even look like he’s breathing anymore, from what Naruto can tell. His heart skips in his chest. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked. Maybe it wasn’t his place. Takashi has spent many hours trying to drill etiquette into Naruto’s head, and maybe he should be listening to that disapproving voice rising in his memories.

Sasuke is still quiet. Naruto opens his mouth to apologize—

"…Yes,” comes the reply, and Sasuke’s voice is strained and stiff from months of disuse. Naruto clicks his teeth together with how quickly he stops his own sentence to listen. Sasuke’s head tips toward Naruto, that anger swirling in his eye—there’s no sadness there, just a clean, burning rage. Naruto feels a tight pull around his heart.

“I miss them,” Sasuke says, sharp, “more than I should.” He stares at Naruto so intensely Naruto feels as if he might burst into flame. _That’s possible,_ he realizes. He doesn’t know what Sasuke’s _anja_ does or looks like, or if he even has it.  

But he doesn’t shrink back.

Sasuke’s anger cools, just slightly. “No one’s asked,” he almost whispers, his voice still hoarse. “Hn.” He blinks at Naruto and looks him up and down as though really seeing him for the first time.

Naruto smiles shakily, feeling as if he’s just won something important.

 

* * *

 

“Has your _anja_ manifested yet?”

This has become something of a routine. Once a week, Naruto sits in the dark, back pressed to the wall, talking while being heard, but not getting very many answers. Sasuke’s a little paler every time he sees him, a little gaunter, but he always listens. Sometimes he replies.

Useless chatter, usually. Weekly updates on visiting dignitaries or who Naruto had most recently pranked or how his lessons were coming along, boring though they were. Sometimes deeper things, more serious things, but not very often. One too many times of being completed ignored or outright told to go away, and Naruto doesn’t ask any more about Sasuke’s family. Once, it seems, was all.

 _Really not very princely, am I?_ Naruto thinks with a smile, and is almost soothed by the sigh Sasuke offers, the sigh that many who have spent some time with him have learned to perfect.

“Yes,” Sasuke says, and it’s such a simple thing, but a reply of any kind is like music to Naruto’s ears. He’s learned, since that first time months ago, to appreciate that word.

"Really!?” He sits a little straighter against the wall. “What’s it like? What form did it take? I don’t have mine yet. I wish I did. Must be nice; I’ve heard some people don’t even _get it,_ and that’s just gotta be awful…”

“Hn.”

He’s been learning to distinguish the noises Sasuke makes. That one’s hard though, that one’s his favorite, and it can mean one of like _eight things._

Naruto shrugs his shoulders and drums a pattern on his knees. “That’s really… really great. I’m happy for you, Sasuke.” Yet another person whose _anja_ works just fine, who’s _normal._

“It’s not special,” Sasuke mutters. “You shouldn’t be.”

Naruto grins. Another goal to shoot for, to keep up with Sasuke, be better, be _good._ “But I am _._ ”

“Hn.”

He leaves it at that.

 

* * *

 

 

“What’re you gonna do when you get out of here?”

 _When,_ Naruto says, intentionally, _when_ not _if,_ because he knows Sasuke will get out of here, one way or another.

Months have bled to years between them, and Naruto’s lessons now point toward politics and intrigue and how to play the court’s Game. He hates all of it. His _anja_ is still dormant, an impenetrable wall in his veins that he just cannot scale no matter how hard he tries. The lines in Ryuusei’s face only increase, and the throne and the crown loom over Naruto like the beasts that lurk in the Ostry Sea.

This routine, however, remains unchanged. Sasuke is still fascinating, still serious and angry and quiet, but he’s _Sasuke._ He may be the only one in the castle Naruto speaks to with any kind of honesty, and receives a broken, brief honesty in return.

Sasuke shifts behind the bars; his face appears and disappears in the moonlight like a memory, angles sharpened by years in the dungeons. The only thing truly unchanged are his eyes, swirling like smoke. “Get even,” he says, very softly. “Find who killed my family and make them pay.”

Naruto’s always believed Sasuke was innocent of the blood that had covered him that day so long ago, but he’s never said it out loud before. And if the king doesn’t see fit to release him, he’ll never get that revenge, despite what Naruto might think about the idea of it. He scoots a little closer to the cell, able then to feel the bars pressing into his back, and stares up at the moon.

“I’m sorry,” he says, even though he’s been saying it for years.

“Hn.” Dismissive.

Naruto nods. Sasuke has never wanted pity.

 

* * *

 

“I think I finally understand you, Sasuke.”

Naruto faces the wall, legs crossed under him, the bars of Sasuke’s cell digging cold lines into his back. “Don’t you think? We’ve had so much time to spend together, it only makes sense. I think you’re my friend, and I understand you.”

Sasuke makes some kind of pained, muffled sound behind him, and Naruto laughs.

"Friend?” Sasuke mutters, voice dark and strained.

“Well, yeah.” Naruto folds his arms. “I don’t have a whole lot of friends in the castle, y’know. No one even seems to notice when I disappear here to come talk to you for like, hours.”

“Hn.” Acceptance, maybe. It’s hard to tell.

“I think that makes us friends. We’re the same, you and me.”

He can almost hear Sasuke shaking his head. The tickle of his _anja_ spreads through Naruto’s chest, quiet, like the rise of the moon and the slip of a breeze. Naruto has never been able to see him use it, but he can _feel_ it, and that’s almost the same. He leans his head back on the bars and closes his eyes, acknowledging the difference in Sasuke’s compared to the king’s, or Takashi’s. His is darker, sharper, rawer.

“We’re not,” Sasuke breathes, and his voice is suddenly very close to Naruto’s ear. Naruto stiffens, but stays still. “We’re _not._ You’re… Hn. No.” And then it disappears.

Naruto sits behind his closed lids and knows what he believes.

He stays that way long after the sensation of Sasuke’s _anja_ fades.

 

* * *

 

"Why haven’t they killed me yet?”

It’s the first time Sasuke has ever asked Naruto a question to start, and it catches him off guard. “What?!” He very nearly falls into his usual place on the other side of Sasuke’s cell, and tries to sort the question out in his head. “Why would they do that?”

“Hn.” A laugh, contained. “Because they think I had a part in it.”

Naruto can hear him shifting around; he wishes he could see him, wishes Sasuke wouldn’t have said that, wishes he had his _anja,_ wishes a lot of things. He sighs, and taps a faint metallic melody on the bar, too soft for anyone but the two of them to hear.

“They don’t think that.”

"Don’t be stupid. They do. It’s why they’ve kept me in here for so long.”

And it has been a _long time._ Years. Naruto crosses his arms, crosses his legs, and pretends it’s not selfish of him to be glad that they haven’t found any proof, one way or another. He doesn’t want to lose Sasuke.

“Dunno,” he whispers, trying not to betray anything by speaking too loudly. “You were a little kid. I’m sure they—”

"They’ve killed people for less, Naruto.”

Sasuke doesn’t say his name very often, but when he does, it’s usually because he’s serious. More serious than usual. Naruto chuckles, but it falls flat.

“They’re not _going_ to find any proof, so you’re fine. Really. You didn’t do anything wrong.” And that’s too much to ask, because maybe he had, Naruto doesn’t really know. He believes he hadn’t, but belief hasn’t previously gotten him very far.

“Hn. Haven’t I?”

“Sasuke…”

“Never mind.”

Naruto turns in the dark, staring through the bars at Sasuke’s visible eye, like a blot of ink. “You can’t think that; how is that any way to live?”

“How is _this_ better?” Sasuke hisses, the pale flash of his hand whipping in a circle. The half of his mouth Naruto can see curls into a bitter frown.

Naruto’s heart clenches and releases in his chest. He wishes he could _see_ him. All of him. “You have me?” he offers halfheartedly, and Sasuke almost laughs, just the beginning of it. His hand drops, and his eye disappears back to the shadows.

“Hn.” Agreement. But just barely.

Naruto smiles.

 

* * *

 

“It is my hope that time away from the castle will be of some benefit.”

Ryuusei sits in the throne across from Naruto, back straight, hands folded. This isn’t a personal audience by any means, and Naruto can feel the weight of the declaration settling coldly in his chest. _Away. He’s sending me away._

Takashi is equally passive; Naruto spares the Usogin a momentary glance and gets an unexplainable nod in return. He returns his stare to the king.

"You will spend a month with the Ikari _._ Perhaps they will be able to help you.”

Naruto blinks at the king, anger replacing the whirl of dread. The Ikari are a distant Eastern tribe of _anja_ users dedicated to the expansion and research of their gifts. They have secluded themselves from the other villages of the East, on a strip of land in the Ostry Sea no larger than the castle, though they still bow to Konoha.

Naruto will go mad there, in a place so small and so strictly run. Not to mention a month, _a whole month,_ without Sasuke.

“Your Majesty, I—”

Ryuusei’s voice is sharp enough to shatter glass. “Do not interrupt me.”

Naruto reluctantly snaps his gaze to the ground, hands clenched, but not before he notices the pale white swirl of the Usogin’s _anja_ replace his irises. The king continues, unabashed.

“With their aid, you may yet unlock your gifts. You will leave immediately, and progress of any kind is essential. _Try._ ”

The dread returns, cold and biting. _What does that mean? I haven’t made progress in six years._ Naruto clenches his hands tighter, nails sinking into skin, nerves fizzing. The king clears his throat, and Naruto looks up.

There’s something complicated in Ryuusei’s face. He gestures to Naruto. “I wish only the best for you, my boy. Truly. May your travel be blessed.”

 _Dismissed,_ Naruto knows, despite the words that warm him. He spins on a heel and turns to go, Takashi’s eyes on his back.

He reaches the door before it hits him. “ _Immediately.”_

_I have to tell Sasuke._

But he is sent off that very same day and never gets the chance.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t work. _Because of course not._ The Ikari can’t help him; they focus on the _anja_ they already possess, not the buried gifts of a useless prince.

They do try, Naruto gives them that, but endless questions and careful examinations and countless hours of useless soul-searching _do not work._

He is returned to Ryuusei no different than when he left, save a good deal more frustrated and full of a month of energy he was not allowed to expel. Everything on the island was too small, the interactions too polite, the Ikari too quiet. “Your Highness” this and “Your Grace” that. He missed Sasuke’s honesty and his voice and his dry, brittle comments.

There had been one girl—Sakura—his age, bright and brilliant with _anja_ like crashing waves, but even she had been too soft; had been on the island too long. She wasn’t Sasuke. So, Naruto had nodded and smiled and meditated his way through a month, and went home still empty, nothing but anger prickling beneath his skin.

He greets Ryuusei with the normal formalities, an honest bow, and has honestly never been happier to see the castle in his life, for all its containing walls.

“Welcome home,” Ryuusei says, though there is a veil of disappointment in the words.

Naruto nods. He knows, he doesn’t need to see it in the king’s face. The past month is a blunt reminder of his shortcomings. Smile stiff, he skirts the servants gathered in the main hall and retreats to his quarters, awaiting the sunset and the promise of better company.

Sasuke, at least, has never cared.

 

* * *

 

But Sasuke’s cell is empty.

Even in the dark, Naruto can tell. The moonrise of his _anja_ is nothing more than an echo, and Naruto feels suddenly hollow without it, like someone has taken a spoon and scooped out his insides.

_No. Nononononono_

He vaults past the guards like the shadow of a nightmare and disappears back into the washed-white halls of the castle, unable to breathe. His heart hammers a desperate tune on his ribs, and he exhales in a terrifying rush of air.

Ryuusei’s not awake; Naruto knows the kind of punishment he’ll receive for waking him up. But Takashi… he barely sleeps.

He should have answers.

And those, more than anything, Naruto _needs._

He darts down the hallway as fast as possible, counting doorways and remembering turns in his head, honestly not caring if the sound of his shoes wakes any of the servants. This is important; this matters.

 _Sasuke_ matters.

Naruto finds Takashi’s study and smiles at himself, fleeting. Light dances faintly beneath the heavy wood of the door, and he takes a long breath, counting the beats of his heart. He doesn’t knock; he doesn’t have to; he’s the _prince._

“Where is he?” he demands with as much authority as he has ever possessed, opening the door as he speaks.

Takashi is standing at the far end of the room, bent over a stack of papers, long pale hair hooked over a shoulder. Every candle in the room is lit, throwing a maze of disjointed shadows over his form. His head bobs just slightly at Naruto’s arrival, an attempt at a bow that falls just short, and he continues running his finger down the paper he’s been reading without looking up.

Naruto feels the beginning of something unspooling in his chest.

_He heard me, he did, he had to._

His hands have started to shake. “Takashi. Where is he?”

The Usogin sighs, that grating, familiar sound, and looks up to meet Naruto’s stare. His eyes are blank, a pale white gaze without color or movement. Naruto swallows. Takashi’s _anja_ is the scratch of a quill and the drop in a lake, rippling and shifting and knowing.

Naruto doesn’t need to clarify. The Usogin knows. He’s not stupid enough to think his trips to visit Sasuke had gone entirely unnoticed by a man with eyes like _that._ He’d just stopped caring a long time ago.

Takashi blinks, once, and his eyes snap back to green, a haunted kind of forest. Naruto crosses his arms and waits. “The Uchiha boy, yes?” Takashi asks, voice sounding as though he’s speaking to a very small child.

 _Boy,_ he says, as if they’re boys any longer. Naruto scrunches up his nose but doesn’t drop his stare. “Yes.”

“He’s dead.”

The words settle like stones in Naruto’s stomach. His nails dig into his arms, he can’t breathe, he _can’t_ , they can’t have done that while he was away, Sasuke didn’t do anything _wrong—_

“What?” And he wants it to come out louder, stronger, but it’s just small.

Takashi flips a sheet of parchment on the desk, eyes once again whirling and the trace of his _anja_ filling the hole in Naruto’s chest. “Executed yesterday morning, at dawn, for the massacre of the Uchiha Family in cold-blood.” His eyes dart to Naruto’s. “I wasn’t aware you were… attached, Your Highness.”

_No! No he didn’t, there’s no way, he can’t I can’t pleasepleaseplease—_

“No…” he whispers, unstable, falling, reeling. That ribbon unfurling between his ribs snaps taut, something deep inside him shatters _,_ and—

And his _anja,_ bright and brilliant and six years too late, spills around him in a flash of gold light.

 

* * *

 

It takes Naruto two months, twelve days, and eight hours to stop glowing.

And as much as he _hates_ the king, as much as he will never, ever forgive him, Ryuusei was right. His _anja_ reserves are like things out of legends. He glows and glows and simmers and sobs, and when he runs out of tears, he just keeps glowing.

He channels everything he is—everything he said and laughed and whispered in that dark dungeon—into the sunrise shine radiating off his skin. _Light._ At last, _at last, yes,_ but too late for it to really matter at all. If he had returned sooner, if he’d been _here,_ then maybe, but he wasn’t.

It is that realization that snuffs him out like a dying ember. He visualizes the end of that endless ribbon and folds it up, wraps it around his ribs and pushes it _down, down, down,_ until he can open his eyes in the midnight of his room and recognize it as darkness. He can still feel his _anja,_ curled up and wound tight, pulsing and humming like a second heartbeat, though… quieter.

Naruto belongs to this world at last, but Sasuke has left it.

 

* * *

 

“I have never had a student with Sunlight,” Takashi says on his first day of training, and Naruto’s not surprised. For his _anja_ to manifest as Light of any kind is rare enough. He’s the definition of _never before_ this, _never before_ that. It makes him tired.

The sun is just rising, the training grounds swathed in pre-dawn mist. Naruto hasn’t been awake this early since…

_Since._

He nods. It still hurts. He suspects it always will. But he has _duties_ , and the king had let him “grieve” long enough, he’d said, especially considering Naruto’s “absence.” As if Ryuusei wasn’t the reason why, as if this _wasn’t his fault._

Naruto blinks, catching himself before he rolls his eyes. Takashi stares at him, hands folded into the sleeves of his robes. “I want to see what you can do with it.”

Training had been the very first thing he’d asked of the king, _ever_ , Naruto thinks. To get stronger, to get better, to understand what it was he was gifted with so that he could protect what he cared about.

To be a good king, when the time comes, eventually.

Naruto releases the near-constant hold he has on his _anja,_ and it spills around him, softer, muted, a shifting swirl of light matching the wake of the rising sun. The release allows him to breathe, honestly, without restraint. Naruto lifts his hand and stares at it, admires the glow undulating along his bones. Takashi makes a low noise of… acknowledgment, maybe. Contempt? Naruto hasn’t spent enough time around him to know, and it doesn’t matter.

He swallows, and closes his eyes, directing the light to a certain point in his body—his left palm, this time—feeling it shift and play along his skin before gathering there as if he is holding the sun. His readings on Light _anja_ were slim; there aren’t very many masters of the technique, and according to the history on it Sunlight hasn’t been seen in well over fifty years.

He wonders briefly if the Ikari know anything about it, then decides he doesn’t care. He won’t be going back.

Naruto tosses the orb from hand to hand before throwing it, without warning, at Takashi’s feet. It explodes in the dirt with a burst like lightning and a sound like a firework, and Naruto stares at it, even as Takashi releases a _very undignified_ yelp and leaps backwards, throwing his hands over his face.

“Your _Highness!”_ the Usogin squeaks, _squeaks,_ and Naruto can’t help himself. He starts laughing, so hard his sides hurt, the flicker of his _anja_ dancing and twisting as his shoulders shake. Light is just light; it’s not solid enough to hurt him, not like the king’s _anja,_ and the sight of Takashi’s flustered, stunned face is something Naruto knows he’ll remember.

He hasn’t laughed like that in two months.

It fades all-too-quickly.

 

* * *

 

Months give way to a year gives way to two gives way to three, and the sharp ache in Naruto’s chest dulls to a slow, persistent throb.

Light can be used to heal, he learns, and closes small cuts from sword training with the flick of a wrist and the sun in his fingertips. It can also be used to stun, and distract, and awe, but mainly he uses it to heal. He ventures into the city under the cover of darkness and gives the people hope, gives them Light, runs his hands over old wounds and broken bones and leaves without so much as a whisper.

Ryuusei watches him, back at the castle, and every time Naruto meets his gaze there is pride in his eyes. Pride, and… something else.

Naruto does not forgive him.

He dreams of moonlight and cold bars and the faint hook of a smirk, the glint of an execution he didn’t witness and wishes he’d been around to stop. He hones his _anja_ until it is at his fingertips as easy as breathing, constantly there just beneath his skin, _his,_ completely and utterly. Burrows all the way to the bottom of those legendary reserves until he is forced to succumb to the darkness, and learns his limits. Trains with Takashi and his all-knowing eyes until it doesn’t matter that he was too late, because he won’t be without the light ever again.

_Except it does matter, it will always, always matter…_

He watches the Sunlight flicker over his knuckles and—

It still hurts.

He _knows_ it always will.

 

* * *

 

“ _What?”_

Ryuusei’s expression is flat, empty, and Naruto can’t believe what he’s just said.

“I oversaw my first judgment after I came of age, as well.” The king crosses his arms. “I am not asking this of you.”

Naruto scrubs a hand through his hair. It’s longer, curling past his ears and around the base of his neck, and he can’t quite see the king properly as it falls back into his eyes. “I don’t…” His first instinct is to refuse; he doesn’t want that kind of weight, hasn’t ever really wanted it, but there’s a familiar steel in Ryuusei’s eyes that indicates he’s not weaseling out of this. Naruto turns his sigh into a clearing of his throat. “Is this judgment all on me to decide?” He won’t walk into this with expectations from the king; he just _won’t._ If Ryuusei is making this prisoner’s life his responsibility, then whatever he deals out _will be_ the last word.

The king hesitates, tapping one of his fingers against the inside of his arm, rings winking out at Naruto in an array of reds and golds. There’s grey at his temples, deep lines in his skin. “Yes,” he says at length, though the word is stiff. “You are old enough to take my place, should the need arise. The impact is something you should learn and accept.”

Naruto nods, slowly. That’s good, at least. No one will have to die, if he can help it; if there’s even a smidge of reasonable doubt.

Everyone deserves to be listened to.

 

* * *

 

The guards bring the prisoner into the throne room on the fifth day of rain.

Naruto is sitting on the throne, one ankle crossed onto his knee, the feather-light brush of his _anja_ filling his lungs. The king is nowhere to be seen, but Takashi is present, standing just off to Naruto’s right, hands folded into his sleeves and face serene. Naruto’s heart pounds relentlessly against his ribs; the fate of the man they are dragging into the room is in his hands, in the words he will speak.

He’s not sure he’s ready for it. He’s not sure he ever will be, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.

Naruto watches the guards all but toss the man at the base of the dais; he puts up a few heartbeats worth of a fight and then goes down hard. He’s injured, easily noticeable, a rasp to his breaths that suggests bruised-if-not-broken ribs and several other scratches and scrapes. His eyes stay on the floor, dark hair gathered into a knot at the nape of his neck, and even pinned down he holds himself like a predator, with a preternatural grace, balanced by the fingertips of the hand they haven’t crushed behind his back.

His garb is foreign, Northern, close-cut and tightened for freedom of movement, and if he has _anja,_ Naruto can’t tell. There’s no lingering prick, no sense of resistance. He’s either one of the regrettably unblessed or _terrifyingly_ skilled at concealment.

Naruto reclines back in the throne and rearranges his face to something cool and distant. _I am strong, I can do this. I can do this._ “Well?” he asks the guard on the left, arching an eyebrow in a deliberate impersonation of Ryuusei.

“Caught in the castle, Highness!” the guard barks, and produces a chokutō in a pitch-black scabbard, the hilt wrapped in equally dark fabric. “Armed to the teeth.”

 _In the castle!?_ He’s either incredibly skilled, or incredibly stupid. Naruto looks at him again and decides skilled first, and then maybe stupid. He does his best not to let the surprise show on his face.

“Did you uncover his purpose?” he asks, and the guard shakes his head. “Did you ask him?”

The guard pauses, and the prisoner beneath him goes suddenly tense. It’s brief, quicker than a breath on the breeze, but Naruto notices. He logs it away and stares at the guard. “…Locked him away to await trial, Highness,” the guard says at last, clearly confused. “Didn’t have time!”

 _No time to ask?_ Naruto watches the prisoner breathe and doesn’t think too hard about his injuries, where he got them, how recent they are. He sighs and gets to his feet, wandering to the edge of the dais, deliberately slow, lazy steps.

The prisoner doesn’t move. Naruto’s insides twist. He hates this; why don’t they ever just _look up?_

Something catches his eye as his gaze travels over the hunched form. There’s a symbol of some kind sewn into the left shoulder of the prisoner’s garb, and Naruto stares at it. A red half-moon over its whole equal in white, like the sun sinking into a field of snow. Familiarity sparks somewhere in his head, but he’s wasted enough time. He glances at the guard, who complies, grabbing a handful of the prisoner’s hair and jerking his head back.

And Naruto is back in the throne room nine years ago, witnessing this same scene, witnessing those same _eyes_ flick to his, smoke and shadow and anger, so much anger, edged in a taut face and crusted blood.

He can’t breathe.

This… this… can’t. It can’t be happening. He’s dead. He’s dead and Naruto buried him, buried the memories three years ago, alone, Sunlight bleeding from his fingertips.

There’s a mask covering the lower half of this man’s face, every fiber of him gone tense and still, almost unnaturally so, and he’s scarred and balanced and his moonrise _anja_ is nowhere to be felt, nowhere at all.

But those… those are _Sasuke’s eyes._

Naruto would know them anywhere.

“Release him,” Naruto orders, and his voice is surprisingly steady. He’s so… proud of himself for it, considering how utterly weak he feels. The guards both hesitate, and Naruto draws into his _anja_ , letting Sunlight flicker at his palms. “ _Release him_.”

They comply, both dropping their grip and taking a few steps back. The man pulls himself to his feet, and while he does so Naruto hears the swishing of robes indicating Takashi has left. _He’s gone to get the king; we don’t have much time._

He’s started to shake; the light in his hands flickering wildly. He doesn’t want to ask; he hasn’t said Sasuke’s name in too many years, but he has to _know_. He has to.

“S—Sasuke?”

It stings. But the man hooks a finger into the curve of his mask and pulls, so it hangs around his neck, and Naruto almost doesn’t retain his balance.

_Sasuke. Alive. Alivealivealivealivealive—_

He can’t stop himself; he reaches out and closes one of his hands around Sasuke’s arm, just ensuring himself that he’s not dreaming, that this is real, that he’s alive. He’d like to launch himself down the dais, throw his arms around Sasuke’s neck and never let him go, but the steel-filled discipline honed into him under Ryuusei’s constant stare keeps his feet rooted to the floor.

Still, Sunlight lances up Sasuke’s skin and across his body, over his chest, and his breathing slows, soothes, evens. It’s not on purpose, the healing, though he’s glad he did it; Naruto feels like his veins are on fire, like someone has lit a match in his chest where his heart should be.

“You were dead,” he chokes out, his voice small. _For three years._

Sasuke blinks, once, but his face doesn’t change. His hand comes up to cover the one Naruto has laid on his arm and squeezes, once, fleeting, brief, and then he closes his eyes. “You… Hn. Not now.” He removes Naruto’s hand and releases it, and Naruto is too stunned to do anything other than let it fall limp back to his side.

Sasuke spins, careful, practiced, snatching the chokutō from the bewildered guard’s hands, and reappears in front of Naruto in the time it takes him to breathe, tugging the mask back up over his nose and mouth. The sweep of his _anja_ whispers through Naruto’s chest, a rising moon and a silent breeze and the new, sharp twirl of a blade. “Not here,” he mutters.

Naruto reaches out to him again, the door crashes open, and Sasuke turns to half-remembered darkness beneath his fingers.

 

* * *

 

There’s a burned outline of Ryuusei’s hand on Naruto’s arm, and the back of his throat tastes like smoke.

He hasn’t seen Ryuusei that angry in a long, long time. And he’d wanted to ask— _demand_ —answers from the king, but he hadn’t even been presented with an opportunity to open his mouth. There’d just been smoke, and then fire, spreading up Ryuusei’s palms and licking between his fingers, the ember-snap of his _anja_ crackling in the shared simmer of his rage.

And then Naruto had been grabbed by the forearm, skin searing beneath the touch, and dragged in front of the king, _“what did you know about this?”_

_“Nothing!”_

And he didn’t. Still doesn’t. Sasuke was dead, had been for three years.

And then… _he wasn’t._

Naruto walks down the hallway, trying not to irritate the burn, arm held stiff and straight at his side. _Can heal it later._ Sasuke had disappeared, and now Naruto had to find him.

Questions pile and swirl in his head, _what happened_ and _where were you_ and _how did you live_ all meshed and tangled. He can’t put a name to the feeling tucked up tight between his ribs, like someone’s told him to release the longest breath he was all-too-aware he’d been holding.

_Sasuke’s alive._

He barely finishes the thought before something jerks him sideways, toppling him into the shadow of a pillar and pinning him to it. Years of training kick in too late, and he’s stuck, caged in by strong arms and a tall frame and smoke-shadow eyes.

“Sas—” The airflow to his voice is cancelled by Sasuke’s arm at his throat, and Naruto forcibly falls silent. The pressure lessens but doesn’t relent entirely, and his other hand pins Naruto’s to the pillar, weight and training behind the bend. His _anja_ swirls around them, and this is the first time Naruto’s seen it, tickling Shadow curling over Sasuke’s arms, his chest, his face, like ink, or blood.

 _Fitting,_ he thinks.

Sasuke doesn’t speak, just keeps him there, shrouded in darkness, the Shadow twining down his body to pool at his feet, radiating into the air around him, spreading to Naruto in turn and dancing over his skin. His eyes remain pointed over Naruto’s shoulder, and Naruto counts the unhindered breaths he takes and studies the details of him, unable to remember the last time he saw his face in any real clarity.

_Alive._

Alive, and nothing like the gaunt, angry prisoner Naruto left in the dark three years ago. Still angry, yes, but Sasuke’s anger is an old thing tucked into the corners of his eyes, subdued now by something unreadable. He’s tall, much taller than Naruto expected him to be, really, _that’s unfair,_ and built like a warrior, the muscles in his arms defined by every shadow’s traced detail. Strands of his hair have pulled loose from the tie and fall around his face in angled, accentuated darkness.

Naruto aches from how much he missed him.

He watches Sasuke watch the hall and tries to quiet the rapid pounding of his heart, the curl of light in his veins.

Footsteps sound to his right, and he stiffens on instinct, knowing what will happen if they’re caught like this, if it’s the _king…_ Sasuke’s eyes flick to his, only a moment, fleeting, and it’s enough to keep him utterly still.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a servant, staring into the shadow of the pillar with a furrow between her eyebrows. Sasuke stares back. Naruto can’t breathe. _She should see us… shouldn’t she?_

The moment lasts an eternity, but eventually she frowns, straightens her skirt, and keeps walking. It is only after her footsteps have tapered away down the hallway that Sasuke releases Naruto like he’s been scalded. He brings his hands to his hair—pauses, a moment, pale fingers locked in dark strands—and looks at Naruto with all things new in the storm of his eyes.

But he says, “You’re still bad at realizing you’re being followed,” and Naruto starts to laugh. He can’t help it; it’s been _three years,_ and… it’s just too much.

“That… _that’s_ what you’re opening with?” he asks, something like shock laced in his voice that he doesn’t bother to hide. _I missed you_ and _where were you_ and _how are you alive_ rise again on his tongue, but he swallows them. Sasuke’s answers have only ever been brief things, and that’s the past.

Sasuke grazes a finger over the hilt of the chokutō at his waist, as if in thought, but his expression above the mask doesn’t change. “…Yes.”

Naruto closes his eyes, unable to look at him. Unable to do much of anything, really, save stand here and breathe. “Not my first choice,” he says softly, and Sasuke sighs. Or maybe it was a laugh. It twists something in his chest that he can’t tell.

“Hn,” and the swirl of his _anja_ fades and then returns. _He’s pacing_. “What do you want me to say?”

Honestly… Naruto doesn’t know. Not an apology, because there’s no way this was his fault. Not an explanation, because this isn’t the place, either. He doesn’t _know_ , and he’d thought he’d cried enough tears over Sasuke to last a lifetime, but there they are, stinging the backs of his closed lids.

He wants… He wants Sasuke to… He wants _Sasuke…_

“Naruto.”

Naruto opens his eyes. Sasuke’s cloaked in Shadow, staring at him. His chest aches.

“ _Why?”_ Naruto asks, the word barely a whisper. “If you weren’t executed, then why…”

One of Sasuke’s eyebrows rises into his hair. “Executed.” It’s not a question. “I… Hn.” His eyes darken, and his hand closes around Naruto’s arm. “Come with me.”

There’s a whisper of Shadow and a rush of cold air, and then they’re on the battlements of the castle, overlooking Konoha’s lights spread out before them like stars. It’s stopped raining, and the air smells like life. Naruto blinks, trying to orient himself, staring at Sasuke perched on the edge of the wall like a great bird of prey, surveying the city.

 _“What_ was that?” Naruto asks, reaching out for the wall to steady himself.

The corner of Sasuke’s lip twitches, and he extends a hand, the Shadow of his _anja_ curling through his fingers. “Shadow Travel,” he says, and the moonrise in Naruto’s chest fades.

_Well. I can’t do that with mine._

“But it doesn’t matter.” Sasuke pivots off the wall and lands facing Naruto, each movement fluid and practiced. He presses his weight into the wall and crosses his arms, eyeing Naruto over the rim of his mask. Naruto still feels a little dazed, a little dizzy, like he’s dreaming and he’s going to wake up and all the grief will come crashing down around him.

Instead, he nods and props himself against the opposite wall. “Just…” he sighs, an old, old weight on his heart. “Just tell me what happened. Please.”

Sasuke blinks, slowly, then reaches up and unties his mask, cupping it in his hands. The smirk is bitter, as usual, but he just looks… sad. “I heard the guards talking,” he begins, haltingly, rotating the mask back and forth, hand to hand. “They said the king had given up on you, sent you away. Your _anja_ was dormant, and he was wasting his time.” The Shadow in his fingers sputters and spins, then fades. “You were gone. You weren’t coming back.” His eyes rise to Naruto’s, angry. “And I already had my _anja,_ had my Shadow. I’d had it for years, at that point.” He shrugs, rips his gaze away. “So I left. It wasn’t hard, after I perfected the Travel.”

Naruto can’t breathe. That month. _That was when it all went wrong._ He can feel his light flickering and crackling in his veins, gained just as he’d lost something else. “Sasuke—”

Sasuke holds up a hand; sets the mask on the edge of the wall. “I went North, to the clans. Nowhere else had use for an accused second son with a dead family.” And he doesn’t darken anymore at the mention of the name. He crosses his arms, his eyes resuming their roam over Naruto’s face. “They made me into… this.” He gestures to himself, the clothes and the grace and the blade. “And they also told me…Hn. They also told me through their vast network that you were still in the castle, and that you weren’t going to be safe for much longer.”

Naruto blinks, thinking of the king’s handprint seared into his skin. “Not safe?” he breathes, and Sasuke shakes his head. “But Ryuusei is—”

“Lying to you,” Sasuke says flatly, expression cold. His eyebrows lift at Naruto’s arm; he’s cupped it to his chest without realizing it. “And hurt you.”

Naruto’s _anja_ swirls on instinct; gold light wreathes the two of them. He runs his palm over the mark and it fades, the coolness of the healing tingling down his skin. Sasuke squints just slightly in the glow, but nods. There’s something spread through his expression, gone as soon as the light fades.

“I’ve never seen him like that before,” Naruto admits, as the last of his _anja_ dissipates into the night air. Sasuke’s frown deepens. “And you… Takashi told me, the night that I went to visit you and your cell was empty, that they had… they had _executed you._ ”

It still aches, just a little, even though Sasuke’s right in front of him, an old wound recently closed. He breathes, and breathes, but it doesn’t help. It never has. 

Sasuke’s face remains blank, the only register of the sentences betrayed by the swift clench and release of one of his hands. “They’ve been lying to you for a long time,” he sighs, and this time it’s definitely a sigh, old and heavy.

Naruto feels suddenly like he’s tipping over the side of the wall, like everything is slowly unraveling around him. He’s back on the streets, being kicked at and laughed at, starving, bleeding, crying. He can’t breathe he _can’t no please, “Why?”_ he chokes out. 

“I don’t know. Just that you’re not safe here anymore.”

“Sasuke, I can’t _leave,_ I’m the prince.”

Sasuke takes a deliberate step closer to him, eyes full of something he can’t name. “Staying could mean—”

“I don’t care!” He flings a hand at the lights of the city. His _anja_ is swirling, sparking; he’s been master of it for so long, for this to be happening now… “I can’t abandon them. If the king has been lying to me, then he’s been lying to _them,_ and I won’t leave them.”

_Not again please no_

Sasuke takes another step closer. Everything is coming apart. Everything…

“I _can’t_ leave them. Not like…”

_Executed yesterday morning, at dawn, for the massacre of the Uchiha Family in cold-blood._

“Not like…”

_I wasn’t aware you were… attached, Your Highness._

“Not again.”

His _anja_ is a living thing in his chest, pulling, straining, _everything has been a lie, Ryuusei hasn’t ever really loved me, has he?_

_No one does._

His _anja_ sputters, unfurls—

And Sasuke is kissing him, sharp and desperate and warm and _real,_ the rise of the moon and the whisper of summer breezes and the twirl of blades in the dark. He is dizzy, reeling, _Sasuke is alive_ , _alive and here and_ _I missed him so much._ Naruto tilts his head and kisses him back, raises his hands to thread through Sasuke’s hair until he works the knot loose and it spills around his face in ink-dark strands, like always. He’s distantly aware he’s glowing, can feel his light shifting and shimmering along his skin beneath Sasuke’s fingers.

Sasuke’s _anja_ rises around them, protecting, Shadow sheltering Light until they stand forehead-to-forehead in the twining dance of themselves, and Naruto has never been more grateful for the darkness.

“Sasuke…”

“I know.”

 “You’re right, I know you are, I just…”

“I know.”

“…I missed you.”

“Hn. I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, let me be level with you all. This fic was a Christmas gift for my friend, and sort of exploded into a larger idea once I got going, as fics are wont to do. I've seen eight (yes, only eight) episodes of original Naruto and rolled with that limited knowledge and her persistent rants in order to write it. Just so you know. HA! Normally I would fill roles with relevant canon characters, but I don't know any of the others well enough, so you get Takashi and Ryuusei, and potentially some others later on. 
> 
> I figured that since it was already 9,000 words someone else might appreciate it, so here it is. There will be more chapters to follow, so I'm leaving that open, but don't expect them for a verrrry long time, likely months. Just a warning now! I'm sorry I can never promise consistent updates. Life is crazy always, I have no real excuse. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!!! Feedback of any kind is welcomed and adored.


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